purple-background-with-quiz-word-colorful-people_52683-126

‘Look Closely at the Present You Are Constructing’; Here’s a 6-Question Quiz to AMPLIFY Your Knowledge

“Look closely at the present you are constructing: it should look like the future you are dreaming.” Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Alice Walker may not have been talking about our AM&P Network’s upcoming AMPLIFY 2022 Content & Marketing Summit on June 22-23 in Washington, D.C., but she could have been. We’ve all been given a clean slate to construct a new present for ourselves. Why not start here?

Here’s a 6-question quiz with information taken straight from the sessions that you will see and hear if you attend AMPLIFY 2022. Check out the full agenda of AMPLIFY here. We’ve put our heart and sole desires to adding value to your work life into this event.

1. According to a recent Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) study, podcast publishers should have a balance between a greater number of ads and shorter ad lengths while maximizing placement across pre-roll, mid-roll, and post-roll positions. The majority of podcast ads today are ______________.
a. pre-roll
b. mid-roll
c. post-roll

Hear about this and more in the session Podcast Away! Lessons in Monetization and Storytelling From Our Leading Podcasts.

2. According to an Adobe Digital Trends survey, 38% of companies feel they are not prepared for a world without third-party cookies. What percentage of organizations does a recent Industry Dive article give as having “rich first-party data”?
a. 10%
b. 28%
c. 49%
d. 67%

Help secure your future by joining Industry Dive’s editor in chief, Davide Savenije, and VP of marketing, Robin Re in the session How to Succeed with First-Party Data – Industry Dive’s Playbook. (They are coming off winning 10 2022 Neal Awards!)

3. According to Hootsuite, social media will account for what percentage of all digital advertising spending in 2022?
a. 20%
b. 33%
c. 45%
d. 56%

“Social media managers will need to get creative as the ad space becomes more competitive and produce high-quality content that mirrors each network’s distinct experience.” To get a piece of this pie, attend the session Connecting Through Social Media: The Power of Social for Niche Audiences with, among others, Debbie Bates-Schrott (pictured), SVP of Yes&, and Nicole Glueckert, director of social media, Yes&.

4. Choose your words carefully. Brief Media founder and CEO and AMPLIFY keynote speaker Elizabeth Green learned right away that it would be beneficial to refer to her audience as “pet __________,” not pet owners. That’s never changed.
a. caretakers
b. readers
c. parents
d. money-spenders

Learn how Green built an idea-sharing culture and one committed to social good in her keynote talk Mission Critical: Social Good as a Core Business Principle on June 22. See the answer (and another key to her success) below.

5. An organization called Qgiv lists 15-plus strategies for volunteer recruitment. One of the strategies is to have a _________________ plan ready from the start.
a. Volunteer Succession
b. Thank-you
c. Information Session
d. All of the above

Join Alison Lake, team lead, content acquisitions, Bloomberg Law, and two association veterans for the session Why Should I Write for You? Turning Volunteer Authors and Contributors into Champions and Promoters.

6. In Forrester’s sales and channel survey, what percentage of B2B sales leaders said they expected their company’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion would be considered by buying committees when evaluating a potential partnership?
a. 10%
b. 22%
c. 33%
d. 54%

“Words matter. You as writers, editors, content creators have a lot of power,” said Melanie Padgett Powers, owner of MelEdits. “The best copy editors I know are… paying attention to how people speak and how language is evolving.” Incorporating Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) into Your Magazine in a Purposeful Way with Padgett Powers and Lilia LaGesse (pictured) will be a must-see session.

ANSWERS

1.b Mid-roll garnered 64% of the ad revenue share last year compared to 32% for pre-roll (up from 22%) and 4% for post-roll.

2.a 10% – “The other 90% fall into the second category. They have been using third-party data and cookies as a patchwork to target audiences, but now that those cookies are becoming obsolete the future has been looking pretty bleak.”

3.b 33% – Brands will have to work harder to create ads that mirror and enrich the distinct experience each social network offers.

4.c parents – Trust is huge, Green said. “Be willing to be vulnerable to establish trust in your organization.”

5.d all of the above. “Try hosting an info session, either virtually or in-person, to explain your program and answer any questions you might have… A succession plan is essentially a guide to what a volunteer should do if they can no longer fulfill their duties and need to pass them to someone else… Develop a good reputation for your volunteer program by emphasizing appreciation from the get-go. Make a plan to thank each person who attends an info session about your program or comes to a one-off volunteer opportunity.

6.d 54% – Incorporating DEI into your publications will only become more and more valuable as time moves on. Don’t miss this session! Also, the second-day keynote will be: We Are the Change Makers: How Association Pros Are Driving Multi-level DEI Progress.

Your Score
1-3 right – Come to AMPLIFY for the right answers!
4-5 right – We need you in the rooms where it happens!
6 right –  Board elections are coming up! Any inclinations?

WorldPressFreedomDay

‘It Does Take a Village’; Navigating the Annual Supply and Demands of World Press Freedom Day

On this World Press Freedom Day 2022, we salute the invaluable journalism being done worldwide—and, of course, within our own AM&P Network. “Freedom is a continuum and is never guaranteed,” writes SIIA President Jeff Joseph. “SIIA will continue to stand up for policies that support press freedom and safety. And we will continue to celebrate the brilliant, quality journalism and publishing coming out of associations and industry that seeks to better our world.”

I just finished watching an all-star panel (pictured here) from the National Press Club that included Jason Rezaian (on the right), Washington Post global opinions writer, author of the book “Prisoner” and producer of the popular podcast “544 Days,” referring to the time he was unjustly imprisoned by Iranian authorities until his release in January 2016.

Interestingly, one of the major themes of the webinar was to support and “subscribe”—to newspapers, magazines, newsletters and especially community news. Jen Judson (third from left), 115th president of the National Press Club and a land warfare reporter for Defense News, said that’s where she got her start, as did many of us. “If you can get in and support community news, that will be so important,” she said. “Subscribe.”

If B2B, niche publishing and associations are made of anything, it’s communities—of people, of topics, of places, of challenges, of resoluteness.

“We can all afford it. We can’t afford not to,” said Rezaian, speaking about support for journalism, before addressing safety. “Without this community—the National Press Club, other press freedom defenders—we wouldn’t be learning [the most important] lessons… It does take a village.

“And we’re coming to the realization that the government and non-government actors need to come together and cooperate. It should be a national issue. It’s one that’s getting worse and worse and worse. And if we don’t address it now, it’s going to get to the point where none of us are going to feel comfortable getting on the plane with our blue passport and going around the world because we will be a target.

“Today is the day to take stock and subscribe,” Rezaian added, “and save democracy.”

“We are in a global war for freedom of speech, freedom of thought,” said Kathy Kiely, Lee Hills Professor of Press Freedom Studies at the University of Missouri and former reporter for USA Today. “Support democracy. Subscribe.” She spoke about the importance of “having someone who is really part of a community [covering that community] and having that institutional memory. But salaries need to improve.”

Here are 5 examples from our member organizations from journalists who are part of their communities:

Ollie’s Last Day: The Impact of a SIDS Death on First Responders. A week ago, on Lexipol’s FireRescue1, Linda Willing, a retired career fire officer and founder of RealWorld Training and Consulting, wrote this moving story about a baby they could not save—and the effects that has. “I am the eye of the hurricane, Ollie and I as one, with the world falling apart around us. It is simple – I breathe, I massage his heart, I hold him inches away from my own face in silent prayer, and he does absolutely nothing.”

An Empathetic Ear—and More—for Veterinary Professionals Struggling With Depression. The American Animal Hospital Association has a blog called NEWStat that was an EXCEL finalist last year for this blog post. “Between 1979 and 2015, 398 veterinarians died by their own hands,” it begins. “…And while this appeared to be a crisis of major proportions, many people in the profession weren’t having ‘The Conversation,’ at least not openly. Thankfully, that’s changing. Because sometimes, talking about it can help. Or, in this case, posting about it.”

A Devastating Stroke and a Speech-Language Revelation. In this recent, first-person account for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s LeaderLive, Grace McConnell writes: “Through the night, I lost control of my right side and could no longer sit or stand. The shift change 12 hours later saved my life, when the head of the ER recognized a stroke.”

We Have Been Here All Along. American Chemical Society’s Chemical & Engineering News won the 2022 Neal Award for Best DEI Coverage for this special issue. “Inspiration comes from within homes, communities, and the broader world—and it is key that when young Black people and other underrepresented people look around these places, they see chemists and engineers who look like them,” wrote guest editor Paula Hammond. “Exposure is key to engaging future chemists and chemical engineers.”

Heart Attacks Struck Sek Kathiresan’s Family. He’s Devoted His Life to Stopping Them. Biopharma Dive’s Ben Fidler won a 2022 Neal Award for Best Profile for this heart-rending story. “This story might be familiar to the millions of people and families affected by heart disease, the world’s leading cause of death. But it’s more than that for Kathiresan, who, when Senthil died, was a cardiologist and emerging as one of the field’s leading geneticists… Kathiresan channeled his despair into motivation.”

Of course, important journalism does not have to be life and death. We are all deeply invested in the niches we represent. But these articles capture the spirit, dedication and humanity that is at the heart of our missions.

Thanks so much for reading on this special day.

Professional business teleworkers connecting online and working from home for their corporate company, remote working and networks concept

‘Create a Place That Is Purpose-Designed’; Offices Must Change to Meet New Reality

In speaking with leaders at last week’s Neal Awards, bringing people back to the office was not top-of-mind. Recruitment, adding more diverse voices, finding the right metrics, revenue initiatives and onboarding all figured more prominently. But offices aren’t going away (yet). In seeking some type of middle ground, so to speak, experts recommend that a more “purpose-designed” office approach must be taken.

“What we’re seeing is a desire to be in an environment that’s more like a hospitality setting or a hotel setting,” says Nena Martin, global technology leader and director of workplace for the design and architecture firm Gensler, in an article on Fast Company about the workplace of the future.

Gone, she says, might be the executive corner office. “We’re seeing [executives] migrate to more of the middle of the space, and giving that corner to employees for a huddle room or a meeting room. It becomes more democratic, and now they have excellent views and it’ll get utilized more often.”

If you’re emphasizing that the point of coming to an office is the water-cooler conversations, then providing the nicest room makes a lot of sense. No reason to keep that interaction so serendipitous.

“Workspaces aren’t about a cubicle farm full of desks with people beavering away on their computers anymore,” says Carolyn Trickett, head of business technology, property and asset management at global real estate services firm JLL, in an excellent report titled Workplaces Disrupted: The Office of the Future on AESC’s Executive Talent digital magazine. “It’s not about having people in the office; it’s now about having people interacting in different ways, depending on the type of work that they’re doing.”

What else can companies do to their offices to make them desirable and—maybe, more importantly—beneficial for people to come in?

Approach it purpose-designed. The ideal, according to Maja Paleka, a founder and director of Juggle Strategies, is “to create a place that is purpose-designed, where people are very careful and purposeful about how this space is going to serve us, what it is going to deliver, and what it is designed for…” she says in the AESC report. “Sometimes where organizations fumble is when the initial motivation is about cost-cutting, real estate consolidation and things like that.”

Provide the comforts of home and support sustainability. To make the office more desirable, Martin points to a “few universal elements, including warmer lighting (think: task lights at desks rather than bright overheads), a variety of soft seating, and ‘biophilic elements’ like plants and access to natural light.” Paleka agrees, saying that reclaimed wood, live plants and natural textures and hues are becoming integral. “Because there is so much of that integration of work and life, we’re seeing more organizations create these really comfortable spaces, so huge use of natural materials is a trend, seeing lots of greenery, but again, creating purposeful spaces within them.”

Duplicate home rituals. “Resimercial” is how Courtney Cotrupe, president of Partners + Napier, a creative agency, describes the build-out of their new space, in the AESC report. “Think about how you work at home: you might wake up in the morning, grab a cup of coffee, start to do some emails in the kitchen, then maybe you grab your laptop and go to the dining room table, and maybe you get up and walk around while you have a conference call,” she said. “We really wanted to inspire that type of work, here.” She left out the couch to nap on.

Bring your dogs to work days. An article in The Washington Post yesterday talked about Wallace, a 2-year-old border collie, chasing ping pong balls in the office all day, as his dog mom worked. (Yes, ping pong tables are front and center in that office.) “Half of the 500 top executives surveyed said they are planning to allow pets at the office,” writes Danielle Abril. “Tech companies including Google, Amazon and Uber plan to continue to allow dogs at their offices, even with their flexible office policies.” Of course, not all agree. Gesundheit.

Add more flexibility. Someone remarked to me this weekend that downtown DC is still overflowing with young people; they’re just not necessarily going to offices. “They don’t want to be at their desks all the time,” said another design expert. “They want to be doing different things [and] be able to move around.” According to the U.K. Workplace Survey 2019 by Gensler Research Institute, “employees who rate their organizations highly on innovation measures also report having greater choice and use a wider range of workspaces to get their work done.” So design matters.

“I think the role of workplace experience managers are just becoming more and more important,” says another expert. Amen and good luck.

KathyLu2

‘Look at Your Job Application and What You’re Asking’; Opening Up and Improving Your Talent Recruitment

I’m sure many of us have googled ourselves to see what comes up. Chris Bakke, co-founder and CEO of Laskie, goes one better: He applies for jobs at his own company to see what the process is like.

This really resonated for me as I have a good friend applying now for editorial positions, so I’m hearing stories from her. Writes Bakke in Fast Company: “I’ve applied to jobs at my own companies for the last eight years, and every year I come away from this experience with a list of things to fix and improve, and a list of things to congratulate our hiring team on for tackling so well. Spending a few hours doing this each year has been one of the most transformative uses of time spent on evaluating the hiring process, and it’s something I recommend to all leaders in this challenging talent market.”

In both our Editorial Council meetings over the last month—virtual and then in-person at the Neal Awards—the challenges of finding and hiring editorial talent has been a huge common denominator. Yes, the ability to be remote has helped. MJBiz, which was just acquired by Emerald for $120 million, credits some of their growth to being able to expand their editorial pool from Denver to all of North America. But competition is still fierce, finding diverse voices a big challenge, and new remote people require extra-special onboarding, so it becomes even more important to get it right.

“Among the things that I recommend for companies to think about is looking at your job application and what you’re asking,” said veteran journalist Kathy Lu, founder of Audiencibility, at our recent Editorial Council meeting. “Try to make it as simple for the job applicant as you can so they’re not trying to play this guessing game with you. And that actually can reflect really well on who you are as a company, because it shows that you care for their time.”

Here are more ideas from our Edit Council and Bakke on the recruitment process:

Develop an internship program. This has come up across the board. Jennifer Perkins, vice president, HR & talent development for Farm Journal, spoke about the success of their college internships and said that they are making specific efforts at diversity and inclusion, a challenge in the ag market. “It’s about developing relationships at events but also looking outside those traditional ag channels. So we have leveraged our relationship with the Cultivating Change Foundation, which is a business advocacy group for agriculture,” she said. “Many college campuses help us find talents, like I said, in those non-traditional ways so that again we’re bringing people into Farm Journal that are more diverse and bring rich backgrounds with them.”

“Set timers per interview stage: There are rarely reasons why any individual stage in the hiring process should take more than five business days,” Bakke writes. He suggests allowing recruiters to see metrics on how long candidates sit from initial application to initial resume review, to first phone screen. If a stage is too long, you can fix it.

“It’s just really, really important to connect with your candidates,” said Perkins. “So that they feel like they’re part of the process. What we’re seeing, I’ve never seen in my almost 30 years of HR—candidates ghosting us at the rate that they are… Again, developing those new and different ways to connect and to build relationships with those candidates so that they feel part of the process, and they feel like they have a stake in the outcome has been really, really important.”

Offer candidates the chance, at some point, to “spread their wings.” In our Edit Council meeting, Charlene Finck said that she served many company roles before being named president of Farm Journal in March of 2020. (Talk about having to be a virtual expert.) She takes pride in “serving agriculture that’s not just the industry, but the farmers and ranchers and growers who grow the things that we eat.” She credits a company “that’s allowed a lot of room to spread your wings and try other things, or do other things and innovate and bring forward business plans for new products, etc. I don’t like to do the same thing every day, so that’s been very helpful. I’ve had a myriad of roles, everything from running all of our content team for many years to being just the ninth editor of Farm Journal magazine in its 145-year history. This role I enjoy the most because I like being able to contribute on multiple levels in multiple places and being in the middle of things.”

Look at your language and qualifications. There was a 2022 Neals finalist article about the line trade from Endeavor Business Media’s T&D World. “In the past, a lot of the prescreening and testing positioning the top candidates requires them to have some background in the trade,” said Barry Anderson, Duke Energy’s regional senior vice president of customer delivery in Florida. “For example, they may have a family member who was a line worker. That puts the minorities at a disadvantage. We are trying to break the wall down, expose them to the craft and give them the sense of what it takes to do the work.” Publishing is a different trade but try to have a more open mind. Lu said that publishers and media companies need to take a close look at their job qualifications, especially for internships. Any language that contains biases or limits your pool should be removed. She cited one Washington Post example that required their interns to have major news outlet experience.

“Assign a full-time scheduler to the recruiting process: Most leaders think, ‘We already have admin assistants or recruiting coordinators, so we’re good,’” Bakke writes. “The reality is, these jobs are extremely complex, so assigning someone whose singular responsibility it is to schedule interviews is a game-changer for actioning candidates quickly between each step in the process.”

“Use the Rule of Four. Todd Carlisle, who ran staffing/HR at Google, then Twitter, found that four interviews are enough to predict whether or not to hire someone with 86% confidence,” Bakke writes. “Every additional interviewer after the fourth person only adds ~1% of predictive power.” Another friend of mine just went through six-plus interviews with Amazon only to be shut down with a quick, insensitive email.

Be fair with your tests and asks. “Some companies ask for a lot when it comes to your job application and edit tests,” Lu said. She talked about editing a 2000-word story and having to give multiple story ideas. Been there, done that. “If they’re applying to, say like five jobs—which technically they’re probably applying to more—and if every job is requiring all these different things it’s very, very exhausting.” I have heard this loudly from my job-seeking friend. “It’s also exploitative because we are asking them for their time to do this work and not paying them for it,” Lu said. “Even things like open-ended questions—say send us a cover letter—that can be really difficult for somebody to figure out what you want. Try to be a little more specific.”